Tag: climate change

World Record – A Poem by Bridget Menasche

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At Science Buffs we like to feature STEM in lots of different ways, whether that be articles about a particular scientific finding, a graduate student feature, or opinion pieces about an issue faced in STEM. This week we another poetry post! Bridget Menasche, a graduate student in the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and contributor to Science Buffs, is a scientist by day and a poet by night. She is also an avid artist. This week she has supplied one of her own photographs to illustrate this poem, a photograph taken at the CU Boulder Greenhouse. Stay tuned for more installments of the creative Science Buffs minds at work!

Greenhouse - Bridget

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The Acidic Ocean: How Ocean Acidification Is Damaging Our Global Ecosystem

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Why should we care about ocean acidification?

Natalie Freeman, a PhD candidate in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences department, studies the effects of ocean acidification on microscopic shell-making organisms known as coccolithophores—the same organisms that form England’s famed White Cliffs of Dover. She often has to explain why we should care we about the acidification of our oceans.

“If I’m on an airplane and I say what I do, I usually talk about how the ocean takes up a lot of carbon … [which] affects the organisms living in the ocean. And they’re important because they feed all of the fish we eat and they also give you every second breath.”

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A Climate Model: Nothing Like Heidi Klum

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You often hear the term “climate model” thrown around in the news or in scientific reports but what does that even mean?

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Before we dive in, it’s useful to differentiate between climate and weather. Weather is all of the short-term (minutes to days) variations of the atmosphere including phenomena like wind, precipitation, cloudiness, and humidity, as well as more organized events like thunderstorms and hurricanes.

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Space ship Earth has a new pilot

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Outside of my professional life as a physicist, I have not seen any visceral evidence that makes me believe in climate change. One Indian summer, one hurricane, or one hot day is not enough evidence to convince me the climate is changing.

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According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the average temperature of the Earth has increased 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last 100 years. I have neither lived for a century, nor do I have the ability to sense a one-degree temperature increase.

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